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Dr. DiTolla’s Clinical Tips – ContacEZ® Restorative Strip System

June 3, 2015
Clinical Tips ContactEZ Restorative Strip System

PRODUCT:
ContacEZ® Restorative Strip System

SOURCE:
ContacEZ
Vancouver, Wash.
360-694-1000contacez.com

One of the better parts of my job is that I am constantly exposed to new ways of doing things, some coming from the lab side and some coming from the dental side. I noticed a long time ago that lab techs and dentists check proximal contacts in very different ways. Clinicians were all taught to use dental floss intraorally; but was this because it was the best way to check contact intensity, or was it just to ensure the patient would be able to get floss through?

Lab technicians never use floss; they use tape and strips to identify and adjust heavy contacts. Until I discovered the ContacEZ® system for adjusting proximal contacts, I only knew the company for the serrated strips they make for getting through contacts inadvertently bonded shut. The Restorative Strip System gives dentists a conservative, predictable way to adjust contacts that makes it easy enough that your dental assistant can adjust the contacts without fear of opening them.

It’s easier to understand if you see the steps in pictures, so check out the ContacEZ Product Information Sheet to see the technique in detail. The website also features links to a couple of published articles from the technique’s inventor, Dr. Daniel Kim, whose concept of interproximal relief has been incorporated into our CAD/CAM crown designs here at the lab.